


The Human Factor

by tonepoem



Category: Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Genre: F/M, Jedao's libido gets him in trouble every time, Mind Games, Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 15:31:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16997664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonepoem/pseuds/tonepoem
Summary: Jedao learns why Khiaz is heptarch, among other things.





	The Human Factor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UrsulaKohl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrsulaKohl/gifts).



In retrospect, Jedao was surprised that anyone bothered warning him.

The warning was so elliptical as to be useless until after the fact, although he didn't hold that against the person who gave it to him. Shuos Tia, a senior analyst in the department, took him aside his first week assigned to the heptarch's office. As the new kid, he'd been "volunteered" to retrieve everyone's orders of coffee, tea, and various other stimulants. Tia offered to show him the way, even though he knew where to find the café in the high-security area of the Citadel of Eyes.

"It's kind of you to make sure I don't wind up lost forever," Jedao said as he walked side-by-side with Tia. She resembled someone's older aunt, gray-streaked hair in a bun, a kindly face and round figure beneath the lumpy red sweater. No one from Propaganda would ever have put her on a recruiting poster. She didn't look glamorous enough for the part.

Two Shuos in the ubiquitous red and gold uniforms walked by. Jedao was interested to note that he had never seen their insignia before. He'd have to look them up at some point.

When the strangers had passed, Tia said, "The heptarch has exacting standards. You'll do well."

Jedao was immediately wary. Was he in danger of being backstabbed this early? Silly question. He was a Shuos surrounded by Shuos, of _course_ he was in danger. The prospect exhilarated him.

"I'm honored to have been assigned here," Jedao said. He'd worked hard for the opportunity. Even then, it was a stroke of fortune that he'd been fast-tracked to the heptarch's own office straight out of Academy.

Jedao was a realist. Although he had ambitions--what healthy young fox didn't?--he was sure that his first _year_ , if not longer, would be spent fetching coffee and snacks. Oh well, at least it beat being stuck at a desk all day and night.

Tia glanced at him sidewise. "You'll find that Shuos-zho likes things done in particular ways."

"I'm prepared to learn," Jedao said, determined to be bland and inoffensive.

Tia shook her head just as they reached the café. "Do you remember everyone's orders?"

"Sure do, ma'am," Jedao said. "Two rose-and-basil teas, one coffee with soy milk, one coffee with kumquat syrup." That sounded absolutely disgusting, but who was he to judge? "Two packs of clove cigarettes with stim spice, one steamed goat's milk with double foam and mint syrup, one latte with exactly one and a half packets of tupelo honey, and a dozen custard buns."

She was laughing now. "I'll take your word for it. I'll warn you people get _quite_ cranky if you leave out something they wanted!"

"I have a good memory." As long as it didn't involve numbers, anyway. He had made sure to recite the order to himself so that he didn't mess up the quantities. As it would turn out, he did, in fact, get everything correct.

He didn't forget Tia's oblique words; but neither did they seem significant, either that day or during the two weeks that followed.

*

The heptarch summoned him to her office for the first time two days after Jedao submitted a report analyzing the threat posed by the Gwa Reality. Jedao assumed that his work hadn't been up to spec and braced himself for the inevitable reprimand. Admittedly, it was disheartening that he had run into trouble this early. Perhaps not surprising, though; the heptarch would have selected the best of the best for her personal analysis team, and if he needed to shape up, he would shape up. He didn't like getting chewed out--who did?--but he'd weathered scathing critiques before. If the heptarch gave him any morsel of useful feedback, he'd use it to improve. Assuming she didn't simply reassign him.

 _Don't catastrophize,_ Jedao told himself all the way to her office. It was down at the very end of the hall. He made himself walk at a reasonable pace, neither too fast nor too slow, past all the senior department heads' offices. He'd spent little time here and hadn't ever had a chance to examine the way people decorated their doors, which might give him insight into their personalities and weaknesses; there'd be time for that later. Even so, he noted in passing that Propaganda's door was occupied by an enormous vintage recruitment poster featuring the then-mascot of the faction, a fox-eared femme fatale named Vix, and that Human Resources had nailed an unfortunate plush hawk right below their nameplate.

He did allow himself to spend an agonizing moment examining the heptarch's door. It didn't indicate her rank; it wasn't necessary. The golden nameplate simply said SHUOS KHIAZ in an unornamented block font. There were no decorations, no indication of what to expect.

Jedao checked his wristwatch to make sure he wasn't too early or too late. The past few weeks had taught him that the heptarch preferred people to start, at most, one or two minutes early, or right on time. He didn't want to piss her off in this arena. It seemed he'd timed his arrival perfectly, though.

There was no sense delaying the inevitable. Jedao knocked. "Shuos-zho," he said. "It's Junior Analyst Jedao."

To his surprise, the door opened. The heptarch stood there regarding him wordlessly, then stepped aside to let him in. She gestured at a seat before her immense desk of red marble streaked with fragments of coral and shellfish.

Jedao froze. _Danger,_ his instincts whispered urgently; and he was used to trusting his instincts. She had done nothing threatening, but he tensed up, convinced that he was in greater danger than if she'd put a gun to his head.

The moment passed. He bowed deeply, aware that she had to have noticed his hesitation, then took the indicated seat. As he passed her, he inhaled her perfume, lightly floral, almost dainty. A young woman's perfume.

She swept by him, coming within a hairsbreadth of brushing against his arm, and took her seat behind the desk.

Jedao's heart nearly seized with her proximity, the vise-like awareness of her beauty. He'd never been this close to her before; had scarcely caught sight of her, as someone too new and too low-ranking. She had a heart-shaped face with wide, dark eyes beneath a long fringe of lashes, and a beautiful mouth. Her luxurious black hair, in a single braid, went down past her knees, and a pair of red-jeweled barrettes held back stray strands. Her red uniform was almost perfectly fitted to her, just _look_ at how long and slender her legs were, the slim hands with their long manicured fingernails. He was _trying_ not to notice that the single fault in the tailoring was that the shirt was too tight at the chest, for someone as full at the bust as she was, and _that_ couldn't be an accident.

 _I'm just out of Academy and boiling over with hormones I didn't ask for and this isn't fair,_ Jedao thought, except what did "fair" ever mean to a fox? Let alone to the _apex predator_ of foxes?

"Shuos-zho," Jedao said, relieved that his voice didn't quite tremble, "you wished to see me?"

The heptarch smiled. Jedao couldn't help staring; wondered if this was what enthrallment felt like. She had an amazing smile. And yet the warning sense only grew stronger. _Get away,_ it bid him, as if he was going to defy the heptarch he owed his allegiance to, and whose position he later hoped to usurp if someone didn't beat him to it.

He was in more danger than he'd ever been even during that live-fire exercise when that fumble-fingered kid Benthy had lost his grip on the grenade and thrown it at him. If nothing else, he might die of _embarrassment_ , because he was increasingly aroused not just by the heptarch's raw physicality but by the very peril of the situation. He desperately hoped that the heptarch hadn't noticed.

"I read your analysis of the Gwa," the heptarch said. Her tone was mild enough, but her _voice_ \--her voice was a smoky alto that he couldn't help but react to. "Very thorough. Very _clever_." That wasn't a compliment, and he forced himself to pay attention to her _words_ instead of that _voice_. "You have a strategist's mind. I assume you play chess."

 _Who doesn't?_ Jedao almost retorted, then caught himself and said merely, "Yes, Shuos-zho."

She reached into a drawer, and he almost thought she was going to shoot him. As if she'd risk her person if she wanted to do away with him, when she had any number of assassins who could get rid of him from a safe distance. All she drew out, however, was a manila file folder with a numerical label. She opened it and riffled through the pages of a printout.

"Unfortunately," and this time her smile widened, eyes lighting with a dangerous amusement, "your analysis is fatally flawed."

There it was. Jedao confined himself to a nod, mind racing. Where had he fucked up? He reviewed everything he'd read, the field agents whose own reports he'd collated, the long hours of research and agonizing. He'd tried _so hard--_

"You did not," the heptarch said, "account for the human factor." She stood. "Allow me to instruct you."

 _Run,_ the voice in the back of his head whispered, more urgently.

He couldn't. She was his heptarch. She _owned_ him. And he wasn't ready to challenge her for the seat, not yet. Until that point, he owed her his unswerving loyalty. If she had something to teach him, however humiliating, he was determined to learn it. Wasn't that how the faction worked? Survival of the fittest?

The heptarch came around the desk and sat on its edge, right in front of him. Jedao's breath hitched. Her breasts were at his eye level. He looked up, at her face; heard her laugh. A chill ran down his spine. At this rate it would be _tomorrow_ before his damnable unwanted erection went away.

She gazed at him through lowered lashes, mock-coquette. Then she reached down and untied the ribbon that bound her hair in its braid, loosed the astonishing rippling mass of dark hair; undid the two barrettes and let them fall with a clatter to the floor. "It tangles," she said, "if I don't comb it." She smiled again, sudden and bright and sharp. "Get up and use your fingers."

By this point Jedao had figured out that the only way he could possibly survive this was to do exactly as she said, without thought or hesitation. He got up, cock straining against his trousers--no way to hide it--and took up an endless handful of hair. It slid through his fingers like finest silk, luxurious. He was convinced there _weren't_ any tangles, it was so smooth. But he carefully raked his fingers through it anyway, teasing the strands apart.

"Your analysis," the heptarch said, as if he wasn't touching her hair like a _lover_ , entirely unhurried, "was all about plans and counterplans and maximizing desired results and game theory. It was _rational_. Tell me, Jedao"--his cock jumped at the way her voice dipped on his name--"when you play chess, do you ever cheat?"

"Of course not," he said, stung into honesty. His classmates back at Academy had teased him for it. It had been a point of pride that he could win without resorting to chicanery, all the while countering the various nasty stratagems his opponents resorted to.

Her eyebrows lifted. "Well, _that's_ your problem," she remarked. "Winning isn't about your _pride_ , Jedao, it's about using whatever dirty trick will get you ahead. If you don't learn _that_ , you're frankly no use to me."

The heptarch turned her head. Her hair shifted in his hands. He didn't want to let go of it.

His heart was beating so hard that he almost didn't hear the next thing she said. "You like older women," she said, matter-of-fact.

If _that_ was all--"I'm sure you know everyone I ever dated in Academy, Shuos-zho," Jedao said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. A number of them had, indeed, been older women; what of it?

The heptarch locked eyes with him. Her mouth curved. It was unfair that anyone could have such an intoxicating smile. Had she _drugged_ him? But he knew, in his heart of hearts, that she didn't _need_ drugs.

"I know everything about you," the heptarch said.

 _That_ worried him. _Ruo,_ he thought before suppressing the thought; the secret that no one could ever know. At the same time, the possibility of being caught--of being accused of plotting treason--just made him harder. He was acutely uncomfortable, but he couldn't _do_ anything with his inconvenient lust. Not to his heptarch of all people.

But it turned out that she was going in another direction entirely. "You wrote home every chance you got," the heptarch said as he continued to tend to her impossibly long hair.

"Yes, Shuos-zho," Jedao said, distracted by her perfume, by the heat of her body, by incoherent visions of what she might look like naked. _Stop that,_ he told himself without conviction. He had quite forgotten about the analysis of the Gwa.

What she did next took him off-guard, even though it shouldn't have. She drew him into an embrace, making him drop his hands; guided his mouth to one of her erect nipples, clearly visible through the fabric of her shirt. He offered no resistance--at first.

"You're very close to your mother, aren't you," the heptarch murmured, mouth brushing against his ear.

Jedao shuddered and closed his eyes, desperately trying to devise a way out. _Stop it stop it stop it--_ Except he couldn't _think_. Not when she was pressing his face against her _tits_ , not when he was struggling with the wild and unwanted and completely inappropriate impulse to tear her shirt open and latch onto her nipple and suckle it.

"I did quite a lot of reading up on the Shparoi," the heptarch went on. Her breath tickled his ear, his cheek. "Such an interesting and old-fashioned culture. You got into so many fights to defend your mother's honor, didn't you? Those lovers she took, instead of getting herself properly married before having children. You took it _personally_ when people insulted her honor, didn't you? One might think that you had her on your mind all the time."

Jedao's breath hissed between his teeth. He couldn't tell her to shut up. He was the most junior analyst in her section, she was _his heptarch--_

The heptarch stroked his hair gently. "I know of your mother. A great beauty, they say. No one could be blamed for desiring her."

"Please, Shuos-zho," Jedao whispered, not sure what he was begging for. "Stop it stop it _stop it--_ "

"You're mine now, Jedao," she said, soothing. _Maternal_. "You're _mine_. As long as you work for me, I'll take care of you in all the ways that matter."

Cloth rustled. _I can't keep my eyes closed forever,_ Jedao thought, and opened them just in time to see the heptarch unbutton her shirt one-handed. Her breasts were high, full, firm, with enormous areolae; much later, Jedao would wonder just what she did to maintain that perfect body. She wore no brassiere.

He froze again. She drew him to her again, brought his mouth again to her breast, teased his lips with the nipple. Jedao's cock felt enormous.

The heptarch parted his lips with her finger, inserted her nipple. Jedao's resistance disintegrated. He closed his mouth around her nipple and began to suck mindlessly.

"There's a good boy," the heptarch said, only she spoke in perfect Shparoi.

Jedao couldn't help it. He exploded into his trousers, hips bucking wildly. The orgasm seemed to go on and on, to the relentless sound of his heptarch humming a lullaby from his childhood, how did she _know_ , of course she _knew_ , she was head of the Shuos for a _reason_ , and her tits were so round and ripe and full and _motherly_ \--

When it was over, he slumped bonelessly in the chair, his face hot with humiliation. The crotch of his trousers was soaked through. He could smell his own come.

"You want the heptarch's seat," she said as she caressed his face, a bare inch from the corner of his mouth. "Everyone I recruit does." Her eyes glinted. "Go ahead and try to take it--when you're ready. If you can control _me_ , instead of the other way around, you'll be ready."

Jedao met her eyes and knew then that he wouldn't ever be ready.


End file.
